Defying Taliban threats, Afghan voters flock to polls

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Shefayee/Agence France-Presse

An Afghan policeman tried to keep order as voters waited in line outside a polling station in Bamiyan on Saturday. Afghan voters went to the polls to choose a successor to President Hamid Karzai, braving Taliban threats in a landmark election.

FROM WIRE REPORTS

Published: 05 April 2014 10:49 PM

Updated: 06 April 2014 12:41 AM

KABUL, Afghanistan — Defying a campaign of Taliban violence, Afghan voters turned out Saturday in numbers heavier than expected to choose a new president and provincial councils, a triumph of determination over intimidation.

Despite repeated threats, militants failed to mount a single major attack anywhere in Afghanistan by the time polls closed, and voters lined up despite heavy rain and cold in the capital and elsewhere.

“Whenever there has been a new king or president, it has been accompanied by death and violence,” said Abdul Wakil Amiri, a government official who turned out early to vote at a Kabul mosque. “For the first time, we are experiencing democracy.”

After 12 years with President Hamid Karzai in power, and decades of upheaval, coup and war, Afghans on Saturday were for the first time voting on a relatively open field of candidates.

By day’s end, officials said voter turnout had far surpassed the 4.6 million of the 2009 presidential election. The election commission chairman, Mohammad Yusuf Nuristani, said the total could reach 7 million. “The enemies of Afghanistan have been defeated,” he said.

‘Important milestone’

In congratulating Afghanistan on the election, President Barack Obama said it represented “another important milestone in Afghans taking full responsibility for their country as the United States and our partners draw down our forces.”

But even as they celebrated the outpouring of votes, many acknowledged the long process looming ahead, with the potential for problems all along the way.

International observers, many of whom had fled Afghanistan after a wave of attacks on foreigners during the campaign, cautioned that how those votes were tallied and reported would bear close watching.

It is likely to take at least a week before even incomplete official results are announced, and weeks more to settle Election Day complaints. Some of the candidates were already filing fraud complaints Saturday.

With eight candidates in the race, it will be difficult for any one candidate to reach the 50 percent threshold that would allow an outright victory. A runoff vote is unlikely to take place until the end of May at the earliest.

The leading candidates going into the vote were Ashraf Ghani, 64, a technocrat and former official in outgoing President Hamid Karzai’s government; Abdullah Abdullah, 53, a former foreign minister who was the second biggest vote-getter against Karzai in the 2009 election; and Zalmai Rassoul, 70, another former foreign minister.

Both Ghani and Abdullah praised the vote. “A proud day for a proud nation,” Ghani said.

Overstated threats

But the threat of violence in many rural areas had forced election authorities to close nearly 1,000 out of a planned-for 7,500 polling places, raising fears that a big chunk of the electorate would remain disenfranchised — although in at least some of those areas voters were able to seek more secure voting places.

But when it came to attacks on Election Day, the Taliban threats seemed to be overstated. Only one suicide bombing attempt could be confirmed — in Khost — and the bomber managed to kill only himself when the police stopped him outside a polling place.

In three scattered attacks on polling places, four voters were reported killed. Two rockets fired randomly into the city of Jalalabad wounded three civilians, none of them even voting age. One border policeman, in southern Kandahar province, and another policeman in remote western Farah province were killed in Taliban attacks.

Bad as all that was, it was a lower casualty toll than a normal day in Afghanistan.

Mohammad Fahim Sadeq, head of the Afghanistan National Participation Organization, an observer group, praised the orderly turnout.

“This has been the best and most incident-free election in Afghanistan’s modern history,” he said, “and it could set the precedence for a historic, peaceful transition of power in Afghanistan.”

The New York Times,

Los Angeles Times,

The Associated Press

AT A GLANCE: The issues

SECURITY: A spike in attacks ahead of the elections has highlighted the poor state of security in Afghanistan. Security has been turned over to the Afghan National Security Forces ahead of the final withdrawal of U.S. and NATO combat troops at the end of this year.

CORRUPTION: According to Transparency International, Afghanistan is one of the most corrupt countries in the world, along with North Korea and Somalia. According to most Afghans, corruption seeps into every facet of their life. Errands as simple as paying bills often require bribes.

ECONOMY: Lack of jobs and widespread poverty have most Afghans wondering where billions of dollars in international aid that poured into Afghanistan after the collapse of the Taliban have gone. Foreign aid provides more than 90 percent of the government’s overall budget.

WOMEN: The rights of women have come a long way since the Taliban ruled the country and women were forced indoors and into the all-encompassing burqa. Today, girls are in school and women are in the workforce, with some holding seats in parliament. Still, activists worry that the government’s determination to protect their rights is waning.

U.S. ROLE: Many Afghans worry that deteriorating relations with Western allies could leave them isolated once again. All presidential candidates have vowed to sign a security agreement with the United States, which is needed if a residual force of U.S. and NATO troops is to remain in Afghanistan next year.

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